Boys of Summer Book - Entry #95

You can see the complete film "Boys of Summer" for free by clicking here. 

100% proceeds go to the Michael J Fox Foundation. 

 August 1, 2004 - Dad
Milwaukee, WI

Bob and I are up and on our way to Milwaukee and Miller Field.   We have a very good tailgate party and an interview with a local TV station.  The game was very interesting between the Brewers and Pittsburgh.  The Brewers win on a suicide squeeze play.

After the game, most of our group returns to the parking lot to drink sodas and beer while the traffic clears. 

Park Number 21 (of 30), Jacobs Field

Milwaukee 8, Pittsburgh 7
WP: L. Vizcaino (4-2)   LP: B. Meadows (2-3)

August 2, 2004 (Late Night) - Bob
Milwaukee, WI

After feeling numb for much of the trip (with my nose literally to the grindstone), I am starting to breathe a little easier (save for the damned money worries...). I wish there was an easy way to quell them, but hard costs demand hard cash. We’re definitely within range of the end of the trip -- less than three weeks. At the same time, I think I have about one week’s worth of funds right now...

August 2, 2004 - Dad
Vedersburg, IN

Bob and I are up early and go for a long walk in downtown Milwaukee. We walk for at least an hour. 

After that, we’re on our way to Vedersburg, Indiana to visit Don Auter’s family. Don is a long time very dear friend from the state of Washington. We are staying with Don’s sister, Suzy and her husband, Tom. They are very warm and generous people.

I take advantage of the opportunity to take a nap and when I wake, it is dinner time and many of Don’s brothers, sisters and spouses have arrived.  We enjoy a very pleasant dinner and evening with them. Don is the only sibling that does  not live in the Vedersburg area. I feel like these people have opened themselves up to us and made us feel very welcome. At the end of the evening they give Bob an envelope with a cash donation they have collected.

Boys of Summer Book - Entry #73

You can see the complete film "Boys of Summer" for free by clicking here. 

100% proceeds go to the Michael J Fox Foundation. 

July 17, 2004 - Bob

Pittsburgh, PA

We're in Pittsburgh -- got in late yesterday. We drove the 250 miles or so which, to us, is easy pickins at this point. Annamaria was still with us and she has a wonderfully calming effect on me -- she's my Bella, to be sure. We had to scramble around Pittsburgh looking for a campground (as we had no digs here) and eventually found one (after finding a Kinko's where I could plug in my laptop -- like I'm doing right here, the next morning). 

It's a very different kind of site -- more of a mobile park than a traditional campground like we have been staying in. the people are very nice and the price is right ($16 a night). 

We went into the Rock Bottom Brewery/Sing Sing last night to see Karl Bailey, a friend of mine through my sis (he's also a piano player/singer at the sing-a-long bar here). 

He was amazing to us -- got us in, we met his beautiful fiancee, then he took about 5-10 minutes of the show and had the crowd singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”. We taped it all -- good footage -- then he went on to pimp our cause a bit which I was amazed by. We handed out some cards and people seemed very into it. 

We got back to the campsite late -- it's about 45 minutes out of town but there was middle of the night construction on a two-way road -- D'oh! We got to sleep about 12:45 and had to be up at 5 AM to take Annamaria to her train. It was very hard to say goodbye to her. I am taking a lot on in this trip and it really helps to have her around because she's such a good partner. We play together and work together very well and I simply enjoy her presence. She's got beautiful light about her. 

So...off she went, on her first train ride in America (she's ridden trains in her trips to Italy, but never in the States). 

I'll see her soon -- but in the moment, my heart aches.

I just got a call from the New York Mets -- they are going to give us a couple of tickets and field passes. That will help us greatly and I am deeply appreciative of their kindness. 

It's funny -- I've only had two teams who really seemed to have not gotten it so far. One was the Tigers -- they never gave me any information until the day of the game when their ironically named "Tiger Care" representative, Tony Burns said: you've been talking to the wrong department (for the last several weeks -- would have been nice to let me know when I could have done something about it, eh?). 

Their Media Rep, Cliff Russell did all he could and was very nice -- but it was last minute and a Yankee game. He actually did pull three media passes out for us at the last second, but by then we had already purchased tickets and were in the ball game. I do appreciate his efforts, though. 

Another disappointment that day was that our local Parkinson Contact (not John -- another man who set us up with John) disappeared on game day after telling us where to go for a pre-party (we purchased a bunch of pizza and soda for people who never showed) and telling us he'd pick up the extra tickets we might have. Well...we left 10 tickets for him at Will Call and still haven't heard from him. We'll see. I would hate for us to have to eat that $180 -- but it wouldn't be the first time. 

I don't mean to be doom and gloom -- there are a lot of wonderful things going on, too -- like John Trudeau, Maria Gebhardt (God Bless her for all the work she's putting in) and Karl Bailey, for example. 

It has been a trip of peaks and valleys -- that's probably the best way to describe it. Can't know the sweet unless you've tasted the sour, eh? 

I wear a yin-yang around my neck pretty much every day and it reminds me of this: balance and the interconnected nature of life. 

"It all goes in," Stephen King once said. 

"Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans," John Lennon once said. 

Wise dudes, I say. 

Until next time. 

You can see the complete film "Boys of Summer" for free by clicking here. 

100% proceeds go to the Michael J Fox Foundation. 

Boys of Summer Book - Entry #72

You can see the complete film "Boys of Summer" for free by clicking here. 

100% proceeds go to the Michael J Fox Foundation. 

July 16, 2004 - Bob

Pittsburgh, PA

Mom left yesterday morning -- I know it was hard for her and Dad. She seems to be doing well and I'm so proud of the way she's fought back from her seemingly never-ending illnesses. Through it all, her spirits are strong today and I admire that. 

The group (and focus) changes greatly with the departures of mom and soon of Annamaria. Not that I want them to go. At the same time, the focus is different with the ladies here. It’s nice to get back to focussing on me and dad and baseball. I have lots of phone calls to make. Lots of plans to go forth with. The difficult thing is getting enough time and focussing enough attention on that time to make something special happen. 

I have a good feeling about Kansas City. I really want more of these events to come off and be special like the one in Philadelphia and Phoenix. Maybe we just need to go to more cities that begin with the letter “P”. Hey -- Pittsburgh’s coming up!

I know I don’t have the wherewithal, myself, to make it go as I see it in my mind. I’ve learned it takes a village. I’m trying to be easy about things. Let’s be honest: We’ve got $3,000 at this point. If we budget $150 a day, (food, gas and expenses -- $75 gas, $30 room, $45 food) that gives us 20 days. We have 33 days to go. There will be other expenses, too -- Tape stock (at least $150).

When I look at it in those terms, I realize we’re much further along than I had worried about. I know we’re going to need to have a few more successful fundraisers, but we’re “in the ballpark.” We’re going to do quite well in KC, hopefully in MN, too. There’s got to be some Parkinson’s groups I can motivate in Chicago an St. Louis...

It’s a joy listening to dad singing and enjoying John Lennon. Beautiful simplicity.

Sincerity is a great risk. People are so willing and wanting to be cynical and it is so rewarded (by laughter and approval) that it becomes a very risky thing to expose one’s true thoughts of self.

The cynical comic lives a life of structural pain, because if he lets down his cynicism, he’s lost his edge and, therefore, his approval. I walked these steps when I lived in L.A. many moons ago.

While listening to John Lennon’s “Beautiful Boy”, dad reaches over, grabs my shoulder, smiles at me and says, “That’s it”.

Baseball is a backdrop. It barely matters. The people are what matter.

Baseball is the point. When there is greatness on the field, hope and possibility are illuminated.

The parks don’t matter. It is the people and the way they treat the people that matter.

New parks that haven’t found their soul: So much concrete and design, flash and dash to what end?

The parks are essential. They hold the history and memory we pass down from one generation to the next.

Those with the history built in: harmonious with their communities, relevant, real...